Toptastic Listicle

Updated September 2023 – always being refreshed

Suppose yourself miniaturised and on a submarine mission to save a top scientist from certain death. Which ten synthesisers would you bring?

I know there are other wonderful things out there which I have not bought with my own money. But there’s usually a good reason why I didn’t buy something with my own money.

Number 10: Behringer DeepMind

Yes it’s a very standard VCO synthesiser in the style of the JUNO-60 but sometimes that’s exactly what you need to sit against all the digital thingies. 12 voices with 2 oscillators can do a lot of damage. And if you need a wilder variety of sound then you have 33 effects units that can be made into an audio feedback loop, causing much insanity.

Of course any decent software ‘analogue’ will blow this thing out of the water – so I’m also rating the touchy-feely aspects of the box. If you just want the noise go for Vacuum Pro. But there are times where this does just as well as my (now horribly expensive) MKS-80. Not a profound instrument but one with a particular and useful place in the orchestra.

Number 9: AKAI MPC Live

If I’m going on a large stage I’m taking the MPC. It’s built like a brick shit house, can hold many hours of samples, has a suite of nice AIR synthesisers and effects built in and can, if you want, run the whole damn show for you. I’ve carried my one all around the world. Now there’s a keyboard version – too big for me – but you could have this as your workstation. Solid, not especially unique – like your best buddy that always comes and gives you a ride back from the venue.

If it’s a smaller DJ style gig then I might prefer the Roland SP404. That will produce an endless stream of beat-driven music – elements pre sampled of course. The MPC works better for a wider range of individual tracks, with grudging applause between.

Number 8: Arturia V Collection and sometimes Cherry Audio

Hey! That’s cheating! Isn’t it just. For the price of one bit of hardware Arturia will sell you thirty three instruments – good cheating. Cherry will let you buy replicas of $20,000 keys for about 30-50 bucks. Maybe the Mercury-6 or MOOG Modular aren’t exactly audio perfect but are enough to make music and that is the only thing that actually matters. Arturia are still better than Cherry because they provide a wider variety of noises.

I would mention Roland Cloud but that is such painful subscription model.

Number 7: Korg Radias

So there was an MS20 and then an MS2000 and then … the Radius which seems to have confused people by not being the MS200000. Look – it’s a very different thing with its own lush style, and offers plenty of that Korg weird stuff like the voice formants that came with the FS1r. It has a vocoder that can vocode the sound of two synth layers. Weird. It’s very much one knob for every function and it’s spacey and bleepy. I would never sell.

Number 6: Roland SH-4D

This funny little box is so un-Roland. It’s odd and ungainly and knobby and has a mode where you can tilt the box to play music. I don’t know if Roland stole some engineers from Korg, but there is at least a transfer of inspiration going on. It sounds really nice too. I’d rather design sounds on this than any of the Zenology hardware or software – it’s the same BMC chip underneath but a whole different language.

To really get the full benefit you need to stack up the different synthesis types – e.g. wavetables on top of 4-osc virtual analogue. That needs too much fiddling with MIDI channels and if that was improved it would jump up the scale pronto.

Number 5: Vital

Vital is not just king of wavetables, but a grand master of traditional synthesis across the board. It eats most other synthesisers, burps and makes room for more. So easy to use I teach it to students, but it fucks with sounds in so many ways you feel like you never reach the end. The latest version adds even more crazy wave fondling that makes every other wavetable synthesiser look stillborn. As it’s incredibly affordable (yes you can pay nothing but c’mon be nice) you can’t go wrong with this one.

Number 4 Korg minilogue x2

I know it’s only the current novelty of it, but having an analogue polysynth that also takes a host of weird and wonderful home brew digital oscillators is FUN. FUN damnit! Put that smile back on your face! Yes the opsix has many more crazy patching possibilities, but the minilogue is pure cantankerous Korg weirdness. Like having to chain two of them to make 8 voices.

Number 3: KORG opsix

Korg’s revenge for being eaten by Yamaha for all those years – show them how to make a usable FM synthesiser. A huge improvement on anything that Yamaha has trotted out over the years (the hideous FS1r for example). The 2.0. version pivots towards a whole different ballgame – make all six operators into modules that you can patch however you like. Five saw waves through a filter? Or one saw wave through five filters? Or maybe you want to create a physical string simulation with noise and comb filters? No problem! Working with the OpSix is like learning how to do magic tricks, it’s fun, it’s amazing for you and the audience.

Number 2: Roland JDXA

On one side it’s a four voice analogue fart bag, ready to do all that Mono/Poly EMS/AKS screeching, vomiting and FUN. On the other side it represents a moment when Roland exceeded their tiny accordion driven business model and tried going Supernatural Synthesis with the Jupiter-80 and Integra. Tons of waveforms stacked up as much as 12 high, multiple filters per note, it’s elephantine and baroque and then you stick the analogue fart bag on top. Have you seen those huge American breakfasts that defy anyone to eat the whole thing? This is your American Breakfast. When you put the JDXA and the System-8’s red and green LEDs next to each other it’s Christmas all year.

Number 1: PadShop 2

PadShop 2 is the chameleon you’re looking for. Put a sound into it and it comes back across the whole damn keyboard – any sound is worth trying but it responds really well to your other synthesisers. For example I sampled all my patches from my Roland V-Synth, they come back out exactly like the beast itself. Anything you cook up from a modular or a freaky old monosynth you have collecting dust – one sample is all you need and near infinite bending and stretching is yours. The convenience of having all your best patches in the one instrument will make your life more joyous.

Do you disagree with any of these choices? Have an opinion to share? You are wrong, but can still leave a comment. Even though you are wrong.